skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Wouldn't a tax on paid downloads to fund a dollar matching system just discourage paid downloads even more? I think the entire premise here is that paid downloads of any kind are going to die and the only time you have scarcity and therefore can charge money is before you've created the art.

The concentration of power is a good point, it would be best to have a healthy ecosystem of Kickstarter clones or at least some model that avoids a single "hottest projects" page, those damn things bleed money from everyone else to create blockbusters.
Doesn't that depend on what mode you use? Joint Stereo behaves as you describe, and is the common mode, but regular stereo mode encodes the two channels independently.
This would be great if it were all apps, not just a select few.
Is the service US-only? I seem to remember reading something like that on HN recently in another thread.
Zinnia Blogging Engine - Powered by django
You can change it later, and it keeps all your followers following after the change. 3rd party apps are supposed to track you by ID and not name, but god only knows who really does what.
Anton Bernolák
Anton Bernolák Anton Bernolák Anton Bernolák Anton Bernolák Anton Bernolák
Anton Bernolák Anton Bernolák Anton Bernolák Anton Bernolák Anton Bernolák
http://www.psdmate.com/2012/10/03/anton-bernolak/
There are incredible online annotations for novels by Thomas Pynchon[1] and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest[2], which are what I thought of first when they talked about expanding into annotating literature. The monetization potential in that area in particular is huge, looking at Cliffs Notes and the like. It's interesting that Andreessen Horowitz is investing in a company that seems to be solving the community problem rather than the technical problem of mass annotation. It seems like the technical challenges were the main hold-up back in the early 90s, but Wikipedia has shown the power and importance of community building when you're trying to create a universal reference.

[1] http://pynchonwiki.com/

[2] http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/ind...
> the value of investments by its 50 or so venture capital fund members increased to 24.6 billion yen ($316 million) in 2011, 35 percent higher than the previous year. But that was a small fraction of the $12.6 billion in venture funding raised by Silicon Valley companies that year, according to Ernst & Young.

We often see articles critical of VC on HN, and to some extent that criticism is a healthy thing. But in my experience the relative lack of VC investment is one of the bottlenecks of the Japanese startup scene.

Startups obviously cannot offer the same degree of stability as a large company, but if they keep offering the same (or lower) salaries and no stock options, I don't know how they can expect to hire good people.
Good annotation for potentially ambiguous text documents is definitely monetizable in other areas. Look at SparkNotes and CliffsNotes in education. Being able to skim verbose or confusing sections of, say a physics textbook, with simple explanations from other readers with comparable backgrounds to me is incredibly helpful.
Not every app needs a back button, though. It's really that simple. That and the behavior is unpredictable because the button can't be labeled, being hardware. If a modal dialog pops up, say in a game, it will be a gamble whether the back button dismisses the dialog or shoots me back to the task I was doing prior to firing up the game. It's not that well thought out an idea.

Now, placement is a different issue and we can argue why these designers chose to put them where they put them. But it has nothing to do with the button being hardware versus software.
What is your ratio of repeat to first-time customers?
What's your customer lifetime value?
Does it scrape university pages and is it to do with course scheduling?
This is just my opinion, but I feel copyright will be less enforceable in the future when it doesn't actually generate revenue. I have to think over time, artists will not want to gate their content, and provide distributors free access to their music to businesses and public spaces in exchange for them, well, playing it and getting exposure. Just like they're doing now with their fans. And all this will be accelerated when people stop buying music altogether. This is sort of a stretch hypothesis, I'm actually not super familiar with how ASCAP and BMI works.
Is there anything ... er ... morally questionable about the business? Like, fake term papers, etc.?
I think they try to do this to some extent with "perks." As a crowdfunder and crowdfundraiser, I can see a divide between people who donate bc they want emotional pleasure and people who donate bc they want to receive something. It should be possible to segment patrons to address different donors' desires. Maybe if you're a music patron seeking stuff, you get options to buy particular tickets/seats or are the first to get songs or limited editions or something. If you're seeking status maybe they put your name somewhere on their website or send you a special Facebook logo, etc.
Sounds like an essay service. Either that or...Bingo cards? ;)
Gamification, if done right, can be more powerful than money, HN, SO, are a little addictive, we all know that... but not sure how it is translated to money. Qell, if money was everything, not sure if we had Wikipedia, right?
That's not true. The number of client API loads are counted, but the number of map tiles loaded by that client is not. i.e. you are charged per page load, irrespective of the user activity on that page.
I've never really had an issue with any sort of ability to reach all of the screen on my galaxy nexus, which he seems to imply I should have horrible problems with. I think this is down to the way I actually use both my hands for almost all tasks. Holding it in my left hand and operating the screen with my right.

I'm fairly sure, but uncertain, that I did this with my iPhone 3g prior to getting the nexus. With everyone discussing single handed use of a phone I wonder if I'm in a minority of people who use their phone this way.
It just strikes me that using my phone one handed would only really happen when my other hand is occupied carrying something, and in that case the reduced ability to reach corners of the screen seems to be a side-effect of using the phone sub-optimally.
Patents Aren't Innovation
Paypal policy update: No class-action suits
I will be part of the nreduce batch starting today with Red Quintal [1]!
We're 96 startups and counting!

1: http://www.redquintal.com
Who UDID It?
It's definitely confusing. I'm not sure what the best strategy for tweet archiving is. They might cut Pinboard off at some time, and they might disallow services that post on your behalf like Buffer.

Personally, I use https://github.com/sferik/t to archive my posts, as well as Pinboard.
Without subsidy crowd patronage will tend towards normal patronage as it exists in the classical arts (we still have patrons commissioning paintings and sculptures, for example). Pure patronage ignores consumer demand for music. Leaving money on the table deprives the artistic community potential income, which limits its size, as well as creates an opening for a competing, consumer-centric model to re-appear. I'm trying to find a way to merge those two sources of revenues (consumer demand and patronage).

Moving towards music distributors being required, as part of the licence, to divert a portion of revenues to matching patronage to artists would be an alternative. That way, person A, who would have supported one project for $100 000 can now support two, with $50 000 each of matching funds (assuming 1:1 matching) making up the other half. The distributors could also dis-intermediate the patrons, the difference between this model and the labels being that the artist would have the freedom to distribute their music for free as well.

Note that an un-intended consequence of this would be music losing mass appeal and catering to the tastes of the patron minority. Given the state of popular music I'm not sure if this would be a terrible loss :P.
He claims that he was only asked about lawsuits from the previous 10 years but the Seagate lawsuit occurred in 1993 so he didn't feel obligated to mention it.
Finally. I've been waiting for a messaging service that provides API-driven MMS capabilities. I'm working on several different web apps with a major emphasis on visual content. In my case, using SMS (plain text) doesn't provide the best experience for my users, but MMS would. It looks like their pricing is highly competitive too.
It's not though. The back button on phones stays on the top or bottom edge (the icons just rotate to face you). Which side it will be on is wild guess though depending on the phone and OEM.

Tablets will move it to the bottom in whatever orientation you are in which good but the issue with that though is that the screen dimensions change and I can't tell you how frustrating that is in games and changing their OpenGL projections on rotation. Not only do you have to handle rotating your content for the orientation, but then you have to adjust for the screen size virtually changing sizes. For some games and apps (like ZenBound) this breaks things by moving the virtual center point of the screen.
The dying reply to this post mentions quality control for explanations. It's definitely a real concern. Not all of the explanations are spot on. Some are outright wrong, some are definitely thrown up very quickly for fast karma, some are shallow explanations, some are jokes and not really explanations at all. That aside, we're dealing with poetry -- obviously some things are open to interpretation.

For those curious of use outside of rap music, you can see The Bill of Rights (50% explained) by James Madison ft. Thomas Jefferson [1].

1: http://rapgenius.com/James-madison-the-bill-of-rights-lyrics
My point is that there will probably be services beyond simply giving me music that I and people with similarly inelastic demands will be willing to pay for. Whether that manifests as a Spotify-like subscription or iTunes-esque pay-per-download has yet to be seen.
What A Crappy Evening Looked Like in 1998
How did they get here?
What's the benefit of doing that? (Is it an automated process?)
> What does that say about the overall reliability of Bitcoins as a new form of currency?

As xtracto said, there isn't something inherently insecure about Bitcoin. In fact, AFAIK, there have been no exploits to date of the actual math behind Bitcoin itself. The issue has been breaches of the various institutions dealing in Bitcoins.

When a bank is broken into and cash is stolen, you wouldn't say that dollars are insecure ― you'd say that the bank is insecure. This is no different, except it's occurring online.
I serve university students. They stick around for an average of 4 years (no surprise there). They're mostly repeat customers, but of course I get a surge of freshmen every year. I love freshmen!
You really should link to the actual blog post as this will be totally useless when you add another one.

http://quicksprints.com/post/32792397474/how-we-increased-la...
So a while back the benefits didn't outweigh the "huge downside" that he found the screen size of the Galaxy SII, but now that Apple increases their screen size "the software benefits that come from that extra half an inch hugely improve the experience of using the phone."

The continually disappointing thing about the iPhone coverage has been people who dismiss things as not needed until Apple gets around to implementing them.

Personally, I guess my hands are bigger than Curtis's, since I've been using 4.3" phones since 2010, and it's really not a big downside at all -- but rather, the iPhone's screen size is, honestly, still too small for me to consider. Thinner/lighter/smaller isn't always better for everyone. One size fits all doesn't.

EDIT: the other oft-overlooked part of this discussion is te frequency of one-handed use. For me, at least, I'm usually already using both hands if I'm doing something more than passively reading/watching something. I'd be interested to know if this is different for others, so that any inconvenience to one-handed use is actually a major inconvenience to your primary use of the phone.

Additionally, Apple recognizes the need for different form factors with pretty much every other portable device they make, from the iPod to the MacBook lines and, reportedly, soon even the iPad. So why not the iPhone?
Yeah, I don't think we'll ever get away from hits and superstars, that's just how humans behave.

I am excited about the possibility of a potentially larger middle class of musicians as well but I can also see pressure from the need for virality that works against a healthy middle class.

"You need to make the kickstarter music top ten page or else you make nothing!" is something I can see happening. At the same time, it's unlikely to be worse than the selling CD's model for those people so maybe that's just complaining about it only being "better" instead of "perfect", which is silly.
They buy a set product that is around $5 to $10 on average. They purchase this typically every quarter. It is not automatically recurring.
Daydum - Free Music player (w/ meteorjs)
I wonder about the licence to use NFL photos?
Not an essay service. Not morally questionable.
Also want to point out that Android typically focuses most of the content towards the bottom of the screen (e.g. most people put icons on the bottom half of their home screen on Android, vs. iPhones that default to Top-Left). Dustin talks about how iPhones have their tab bars at the bottom vs. Android at the top, making the tabs easier to reach, but really the bigger problem is what he points out that ALL of the iPhones real action buttons are at the top, and out of reach.
Productive: Orange (construction = work)
Leisure: Light blue (sky = watching the clouds)
iOS6 Breaks setTimeout
This is mostly pointless.. Even before IOS6, google maps on IOS was already useless. I think i only used it for public transportation (which living in LA i have little use for, sadly)

on IOS, i always used free telenav for turn by turn.

and if you want to find hotels and restaurants you don't need a gps or map... you need yelp! the place where google maps gets all those business to begin with.

choosing google maps because it has more business and such is doing it wrong. all that said, i still use google maps for the oddball point-of-interest or public transportation because they did a kick ass job there (and i'm still to see nokia maps)
It's Apple's fault for not including it in the iOS HIG. This might be because developers prefer to use swipe gestures for something else entirely.
X.25 had nothing whatsoever to do with the ARPANET. It was a wildly different protocol in EVERY respect, and had NO influence on the Internet. At all.

CYCLADES maybe had a bit of influence. X.25, nope.

Packet switching itself was, of course, also invented in the United States.

The ARPANET was not "based on British design", either.

I realize that it bothers some people that the United States invented the Internet, but that's how it was. Sorry, and you're welcome.
Of course this is all anecdotal, but I recently switched from T-Mobile to VZ; and I went "down" from my 4.65" SGN to a 4.3" Razr M. I wouldn't say the extra size of the SGN gave me "horrible problems", but the size aggravated me enough to where I was willing to give up the extra DPI to have a smaller phone again. Likewise, I always found the 3.5" iPhones too cramped to use comfortably. Screens are not one-size-fits-all.
> There is no more hardware back button on any recent android phone either...

Any?

While the Galaxy Nexus has onscreen navigation controls now (and the Nexus7 followed suit), both the One X and the Samsung Galaxy SIII have dedicated capacitive back buttons "off screen". On the OneX the button is in the normal place (on the left) and is oddly (but in keeping with the SII) on the right on the SIII.
Lazyweb Requests
Of course some things are expensive - but there are still efficiency savings to be made; Americans on average spend more for the same health outcomes.

For example, American medicine has a culture of ordering lots of tests based on legal, rather than scientific guidance. Consider the Merenstein PSA case [1] for an example.

Increasing efficiency and driving down average healthcare costs ought to reduce insurance costs.

[1] http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2004/05/doctor-sued-uspstf-guide...
The 3.7" 858x480 (240 ppi) 16:9 screen of my Motorola Defy pretty much hits the sweet spot for me.
Gitorious just became way, way easier to install
Huh, that's interesting, I'm right handed and generally hold my phone in my left hand, so that my more dextrous hand is free to either touch the screen or do other things (like open doors).

I wonder what's more common: holding the phone in your off hand or your dominant hand?
Hey there - obviously we want want to be as clear as possible so we appreciate your feedback.

Mainly I think this is a lack of clarity in that the about page is to talk about Monogram and not a specific profile. We want to have specific pages that show in detail what each profile is and what it can do for you, but of course these things take some time.

Thanks again for your thoughts!
Yes. Google 'Mud Pulse Telemetry'

Low bit rate as in < 30 bits per second (As of when I interned for a major oil services company this past summer)
What about language problem? And investor Eco system? These are important considerations for entrepreneurs.
Peter Norvig's 21 line Python Statistical Spell-Checker
Ah, gotcha. I see those services dying pretty quickly actually and music just being shared and downloaded from all over and always free.

I guess there will always be a place for pay services dealing with recommendation or cloud storage but I'm assuming that the value of a digital copy of a song, streamed or not, will be zero pretty soon.
When I joined Twitter back in the relatively early days of the service every tweet I did would generate replies and lead to conversations. I met some people locally and made new friends. That hasn't happened in about 3 years now. Unless you are a celebrity of some sort nobody but your real life friends will care about your updates these days. And they will also see the same info when you put it on Facebook. When something happens in the world Twitter is the first place I look for breaking news. But I'm quickly losing interest in creating content for Twitter because there is virtually no engagement.
I never use a Facebook or third-party login, if I can help it. Why would I want to tie my real identity to some site I'm opting to _try_ for the first time? I might want to integrate an account to Facebook if the service provided some phenomenal value to me for doing so and the service had gained my trust. But providing my Facebook information to an unknown entity is far more intrusive than providing an email.
Just because many people are not using something, it doesn't mean demand for that something is high. Often, it's the other way around - if many people are not using something, it's usually due to low demand (at this price).

What price? Time, effort, attention, opportunity costs, etc.
Launching apps from file associations isn't integration. (Windows 1.0 did that.) Try sending files instead. The source app on iOS has to integrate every library it wants to support. eg to have Dropbox it would need to include a Dropbox library, and a Google library, and a Box library etc. (And ask for usernames and passwords in each app including the library.) A frequent complaint of users with other browsers installed is how often the builtin Safari comes up instead.

Try alternate dialers. On Android you just install an app that claims to handle tel:// urls. You are out of luck on iOS. Try adding another social network that can handle sharing. Again you are out of luck on iOS until every source app adds libraries. And images, contacts, calendars, and whatever some startup thinks of next week.

iOS is trivial in this regard - there is essentially no cross app integration. That fits with Apple's walled garden model, and means that apps do not change their functionality after installation which fits in with Apple's review process. Having "deterministic" app behaviour hasn't hurt Apple so far - they rake in over half of the smartphone industry profits.
This is getting ridiculous. Guys, it's a smartphone, not a religious/ceremonial artifact; it doesn't warrant endless circlejerk blog posts about some frivolous 'perfect size'. This is quickly turning into a "How many angels can sit on the head of a pin?" discussion.

_Clearly_ people get along just fine either not reaching the whole screen with their thumbs, and otherwise using two hands. Big Android phones are selling very well...
Exactly. Bitcoin transfers are irreversible. Which means, effectively, they are closer to physical money than electronic balances in this respect.
Are you allowed to say the traffic ratio Google vs paid ads? Is it heavily dependent on search?
Do you Focus on Health, Success, Or Family First
Startup Accelerators Are An Investment Class Not a Mentorship Program
COMING SOON: BATMAN ARKHAM CITY FOR MAC
Improving Content ID
the DREAM Act is not for real dreamers.
You can still support it sure, but the recommendation from google is to move away from them on phones. IIRC (don't quote me) on tablets, it's a requirement.
My two cents:

I run a design firm and would love to use a tool that made everyone happier.

The creators clearly have an idea for a way to change designer's workflow, but after viewing this video, the one on their site, and the tour section, I have no idea of how it really works. Right now, I simply don't see how this is an improvement over our current process (which does most of this).

The lack of links back to the main site on this blog is just odd, and the lack of sign-up at the end of the tour page is also puzzling. Its all so off putting...

I think showcasing real examples would be great. Displaying a scenario of how it can be used for designer, Account Manager, client, etc. Showing how it helps everyone involved. Right now it is all so abstract.

Update: It appears my post is unable to be read, as are the last 70 days of posts I've made. No explanation or notice. No notification my posts are hidden in any way from within the backend. I'm not spamming, nor have I posted anything other than thoughts. I have a positive karma, so I'm hopefully contributing to the community.

I like Hacker News because it is a place where big ideas and honest thoughts meet. It is what is great about the internet.

But being ghost-banned from a site that claims to be a haven for fresh, independent ideas is ironic. I understand how tough it must be to curate this site, but if dissenting opinions are no longer allowed on this site I will happily move on.
Forgive Us Our Skins & Scars: Thoughts on Race, Gender and Identity
A predictor doesnt have to be always right to be a predictor.
i haven't played too much with raphael.js, but it seems convenient for vector drawing, and i hear its pretty quick to get started with. d3 really shines when it comes to data-driven graphics, and it's a much broader set of tools for data visualization in the browser. it also has a steeper learning curve, which i'm trying to alleviate with these videos!
Looks quite reasonable. An undergraduate degree is bare minimum that you would require to get a white collar job in any country
Ask HN: Do You Talk to Strangers?
Are you paying for any marketing? If so, what kind of marketing are you doing?
How Technology Destroyed The Once Substantive Presidential Debate
We bought licenses for the photos from Getty.
Apple gets a free pass.
I'd also be curious to hear advice for potential buyers? What are good questions to ask? How can you tell how stable the business is, etc.

I've thought of buying sites on Flippa before but I always get worried they're scams.
thanks! it helps me keep on time and makes things a little more fun